Chapter XXX: Humility Barebones Stout

The report goes on to say—

“But what the circumscribed wits of Etherial Softdown, the divine languishments of Eusedora Polypheme, the defiant unscrupulousness of Regina Straightback, failed to accomplish, namely, the convulsing of all Christendom, by one dexterous jugglery of cant, was left to be achieved by our at present most honored agent, Humility Barebones Stout.

“It will be seen, by her genealogical tree, as indicated in her middle name, that she came, as it were, prepared, through a long table of evangelical descent, for the work before her. Nothing could be conceived more apropos: the blood of the Covenanters in the veins of the modern ‘New-Light.’ Sharpened in its passage through New England Puritanism, it has now become as professionally capable of splitting hairs, as it formerly was of splitting heads. And then there was a time-honored nasal, in which it

‘Poured its dolors forth;’

the preservation of the exact intonations of which does marvellous credit to the antiquarian proclivities of this distinguished line. Then there is a characteristic command of doggerel snatches, confessedly without rhythm, because they were inspired,—for which the Fathers Barebones and Poundtext were peculiarly noted in their day,—which seems to have been transmitted, without the slightest deterioration of manner or emphasis. And, in addition, there was an ecstaticism of textology, to which these revered fathers uniformly resigned themselves, about the time they had reached their ‘sixteenthlies,’ the facilities of which seem to have been more than improved upon by their modern representative. In a word, no reach of nasal effect,

‘From coughing trombone down to hoarsened pipe’—

no fecundant sprightliness of doggerel—no illuminated aptitude of text, betwixt Daniel in the lion’s den, and Death on the pale horse—no syllogistic or aphoristic touch of bedridden theology that has been in vogue since the time of Luther, but is at the tongue’s end of this Cyclopean daughter of the ‘Fathers of the Covenant.’

“Admirable! admirable! What was to prevent Humility Barebones Stout from using these rightfully-derived and extraordinary gifts for the good of humanity? Not that she had thought anything more philosophically about it, than that the good of humanity ought to consist with the claims of her inherited renown, her caste, and her prescriptive rights. Not that she cared particularly who suffered; but being of a hysterical and exacting temperament, she had come to the conclusion that her own, the white race, had conspired against her—that they were jealous of her—would never yield to her ancestral claims a fair precedence.

“Her pride would not permit her to cry persecution for herself and in her own name; for she had been, lo! these many days! a tireless scribbler and notoriety-seeker, in appeals to her own race, through the legitimate channels of current literature, on the simple basis of her own individual experiences and the inspirations proper to her sex and grade. These having failed to attract any attention beyond the day’s notoriety, and from the additional fact of the most labored of them having been consigned to oblivion through the pages of silly annuals, she turned herself about in wrath, to avenge her wrongs. Her heart was filled with bitterness.

“She had known Etherial Softdown, with jealous unction; she had communed with Eusedora Polypheme, in hopeless emulation of spirit; she had shrunk before the lioness moods of the triumphing Regina Straightback. She felt that she was displaced—that she had been left behind. She saw that they were all too proud, or too far advanced, to condescend to use the rusty weapons which had fallen to her by inheritance; that they had set their feet above her, on the platform of progress; that they at least called the semblances of science and philosophy, through their terminalogies, to aid them, while they left cant to their menials.

“She felt that she was as bold as they. In what, then, consisted her weakness? Could the fault be in her ‘stars,’ that she was still an ‘underling’? ‘Ha! ha! ha! Cant! cant! cant!’ and she laughed out, with the exultation of Softdown’s first ‘Eureka!’ ’Cant! cant! I have it! It descended to me from Barebones, my illustrious ancestor. Insolent beldames! I will show them! They affect to quote the pure strains of philosophy—

“To imitate the graces of the gods.”

We shall see! we shall see! I hate my own race; it has not appreciated me. What care I for white-slavery and its abuses—for fairness, for truth? Cant! cant! By its magic, I shall

“Show as a snowy dove trooping with crows.”

Eureka! Eureka!’

Etherial! ah, Etherial! the race hath not been to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—thou hast been overshadowed!

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